Foreign Interference in the 2020 U.S. Election: It’s the British, Stupid!

by David Christie

[Print version of this article]

Jan. 22—The December 2018 House of Lords Report, UK Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, outlines the British Imperial penetration in the United States via their various emissaries into friendly U.S. institutions and individuals interested in maintaining the so-called “special relationship,” and thereby keeping the British geopolitical world order alive. The report makes clear that a second term for Donald Trump would have meant the end of the special relationship, but it also makes clear that the British fear the new emerging economic paradigm—highlighting China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a major threat to the British imperial system.

Certainly Trump’s U.S.-China trade deal, signed at the end of 2019, with its emphasis on agriculture and manufacturing, could have created the conditions for potential U.S.-China collaboration around large-scale infrastructure, with President Trump’s vision as a builder potentially coming into line with President Xi Jinping’s BRI. Such collaboration among nations was precisely the intent of Lyndon and Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s proposal for a “New Silk Road,” which has been realized in part by China’s launching of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in 2013, together called the Belt and Road Initiative.

Unfortunately, COVID struck, and the Neo-Con-Neo-Lib-British political machine went into high gear to sabotage what Lyndon LaRouche repeatedly identified as the most crucial bilateral relationship on the planet.

The British Assault on the Trump Presidency

The British assault on Donald Trump’s presidency began well before he assumed office, as we now know from the surveillance operations on Trump and his campaign staff, organized by British intelligence and its Five Eyes collaborators, especially those within the U.S. intelligence agencies. Perhaps the Empire’s greatest fear of a Trump presidency was his insistence, from the beginning of his campaign, that “being a friend with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing,” followed by his initial close friendship with President Xi Jinping. The division of the world into warring blocs, East vs. West, is the necessary condition for the survival of the British Empire and the City of London.

At the center of incessant “Russian collusion” claims, propagated through the international British run media outlets, were the never-ending claims of “highly likely” cyber activities by Russia. The source of those claims was British intelligence, claims which were then used to delegitimize the campaign and ensuing presidency of Donald Trump.

As we will show, this same British intelligence apparatus, and its U.S. counterparts, were central to both the issues of “Russian collusion” with Trump and the massive disinformation campaign claiming that there was no fraud in the 2020 election. This in turn led to the second impeachment of Trump and the dictatorial censorship operations against Trump and anyone daring to challenge the “legitimacy” of the 2020 election. This was the take-down of Donald Trump, “by any means necessary,” and the restoration of the special relationship demanded by the British House of Lords report through the feebleminded Joe Biden.

One figure stands out among these British emissaries helping to assemble the intelligence for the House of Lords report—Robert Hannigan. Hannigan, the foremost UK intelligence official, was the head of the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ—the U.S. National Security Agency equivalent), until he announced his resignation on January 23, 2017, two days after Donald Trump was sworn in.

Hannigan’s resignation came amidst the growing storm of revelations surrounding British interference into the 2016 election cycle, led by the infamous former MI-6 Russia desk officer Christopher Steele and his dossier. Steele’s smut dossier became the basis for the accusations against Trump being a pawn of Russia, with salacious urine laden claims of Russian “kompromat” against Trump.

Hannigan had played a significant role in pushing the line about Trump and his associates colluding with Russia, going back to the end of 2015, with Hannigan’s GCHQ feeding fake intelligence to U.S. agencies that it had supposedly “intercepted.” This collusion narrative culminated in Hannigan’s meeting with then CIA director John Brennan in 2016 to pass on material “so sensitive” that it had to be passed at “the director level,” according to an April 2017 Guardian article, “British Spies Were First to Spot Trump Team’s Links with Russia.” It was these British intelligence operatives, and their Five Eyes collaborators, that created the narrative of Trump’s collusion with Russia that was then ultimately used as the basis for the Mueller Grand Inquisition.

A few months before Hannigan left GCHQ, in the heat of the 2016 election cycle, he took the critical step to set up the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) that became operational in October 2016, operating out of GCHQ. The NCSC would be integral in perpetuating the Russian hacking narrative that would lead to claims of Russian meddling in the 2018 and 2020 elections, while fueling the Russiagate hoax against Trump.

These narratives were critical to ensure a British guiding hand in the U.S. election cycle, and the NCSC would go on to become extremely “cozy” with U.S. agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) created in November 2018, and the NSA’s Cybersecurity Directorate created in July 2019, which was previously known, and described by NSA head Paul Nakasone, as “NSA’s Russia Small Group.” This Russia Small Group at NSA was tasked with monitoring alleged Russian cyberattacks and penetration into the U.S. election system—especially that of the 2018 midterms.

NSA’s Small Russia Group was created in the context of the fraudulent claims of Russian interference around the 2016 election cycle, with Mueller’s allegations justifying the group’s existence. Later, while Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his controllers’ scheme were going down in flames, the NCSC and its U.S. counterparts would keep the Russian cyber activity narrative alive, giving these agencies an expanded role in dealing with cybersecurity issues in both the 2018 and 2020 election cycles.

NCSC, CISA, and NSA’s ‘Russia Small Group’

The U.S.’s CISA and UK’s NCSC have issued joint statements on their work supposedly identifying COVID-19 research cyber scams in April 2020, which was then used as a primer for their big revelation of Russian hacking for intelligence on the COVID vaccines later in 2020, which the NCSC assessed was done by “APT29, also named ‘the Dukes’ or ‘Cozy Bear’.” The NCSC press release, “UK and Allies Expose Russian Attacks on Coronavirus Vaccine Development,” of July 16, 2020 goes on to say:

APT29 almost certainly operates as part of Russian intelligence services. This assessment is also supported by partners at the Canadian Communication Security Establishment (CSE), the U.S. Department for Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).

The Department of Homeland Security’s Christopher Krebs made headlines when he was unceremoniously fired by Donald Trump, after his ridiculous claim that “the November 3 election was the most secure in American history” (besting the 2018 midterms, which Krebs had previously said were the most secure in American history).

Another agency working on elections, the NSA’s Russia Small Group, and its Director, Anne Neuberger, are not as well known to the American public. Neuberger’s NSA group and Krebs’ DHS group collaborated in the so-called defense of America from the great Russian boogeyman, a repeat of the supposed meddling in the 2018 midterms and the 2016 presidential election. The collaboration between Neuberger, Krebs, and their trans-Atlantic partners, would continue into 2020.

Anne Neuberger has now been nominated to President Biden’s National Security Council (NSC) for the newly created position of Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology. Neuberger’s new position was created amid an ongoing investigation into the SolarWinds attack, reportedly one of the worst cyber-espionage attacks on U.S. institutions, penetrating multiple U.S. federal government agencies and leading to a series of data breaches, which again was blamed on the allegedly Russian APT29 (Cozy Bear) by U.S. officials and, as usual, without evidence.

CISA and FBI upped the bear-name ante, saying the likely culprit in the SolarWinds case was “Berserk Bear,” and were later joined by NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to claim that “Russia was likely responsible,” according to an AP article of January 5, 2021 carried in Security Week.

Before being nominated to Biden’s NSC, Neuberger was the head of NSA’s Cybersecurity Directorate, established as a permanent group at NSA out of the NSA’s Russia Small Group, again, led by Neuberger. The NSA’s Cybersecurity Directorate was “tasked with countering Russian meddling in U.S. elections. It is now known internally as the Elections Security Group, following expansion of the role to include activity involving China, Iran, North Korea and terrorist groups,” as reported by Security Week in a July 24, 2019 article.

In a Feb. 10, 2020 article on the Department of Defense (DOD) website, titled “DOD Has Enduring Role in Election Defense,” NSA chief Paul Nakasone laid out the Defense Department’s role in election security while speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum:

We began the ability for us to defend the presidential elections not today, not six months from now. We began it the day after the midterm elections. We have not let up in terms of our ability to understand what our adversaries are doing.

The DOD report continues:

The Defense Department plays an important role in that whole-of-government partnership, spearheaded by the NSA and Cybercom’s Election Security Group, formed in the wake of the successes of the Russia Small Group during the 2018 midterms.

The Russian cyber boogeyman was also used to justify collaboration among the Five Eyes intelligence agencies, which was allowed to continue due to the fact that no one within Congress or other U.S. institutions dared to challenge the fake Russia-DNC-hack-Wikileaks narrative.

Enter Ciaran Martin and Robert Hannigan

Ciaran Martin, then CEO of UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) was quoted in a September 30, 2019 Washington Post article, “NSA Launches New Cyber Defense Directorate,” saying that if the NSA and DHS can partner effectively in the cybersecurity mission, it “could be incredibly powerful,” going on to say that new directorate “provides the opportunity to take the trans-Atlantic cybersecurity relationship to a new level.”

Robert Hannigan, former head of GCHQ, said of Neuberger’s appointment to Biden’s NSC:

Good to see the Biden Administration giving cyber security priority and restoring to the White House strategic leadership in this critical area. A huge agenda, but Anne is a great choice for the role—deeply knowledgeable on cyber both for government and industry and a pleasure to work with. I wish her well—we will all benefit from a new U.S. focus on cyber.

Both Krebs and Neuberger were extremely close to Ciaran Martin, former CEO of the NCSC—the agency that Hannigan had created before leaving GCHQ. Martin gushed in various forums that Krebs, Neuberger, and their agencies were instrumental in securing the “the trans-Atlantic partnership.” Upon Martin announcing his departure from NCSC at the end of 2019 (Martin actually left in August 2020), Krebs issued the following statement:

Ciaran Martin is an incredible partner to CISA, DHS, and the United States government. It will be tough to see him move on from his post, but we can be confident that he has set up an enduring organization in the NCSC. As we work to stand up CISA, Ciaran has provided invaluable counsel and perspective, and he has become a true friend to me, and our team at CISA, along the way. I am thankful we’ll have several more months working closely as partners together and wish him well on his next chapter.

After Krebs was fired by Trump, Ciaran Martin told the BBC that Krebs’s

work on election security is his crowning achievement. It brought together everything he’d built: the ability to harness elite national security capabilities to protect small local government bodies that run elections.

Martin also tweeted that Krebs has “been the best partner an ally could hope for.”

Hannigan, Again

The alleged role of the Russian troll farm, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), was used as the basis for many of the changes in the election processes in the United States—particularly as those changes relate to cybersecurity and electronic devices involved in voting. In an August 2020 Op-Ed in Foreign Affairs, NSA head General Nakasone cited the role of the Russia Small Group, headed by Neuberger, in supposedly preventing the IRA from interfering in the 2018 midterm elections.

This alleged Russian intelligence troll farm was also implicated in the 2016 operations to secure Trump’s election on behalf of Russia. It should be remembered that the final report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller said that the IRA’s goal was to “provoke and amplify political and social discord” in the 2016 election. Mueller’s report then became a major part of the justification for the existence of the NSA’s Russia Small Group. IRA was in fact essentially a click-bait operation, issuing nearly the same amount of anti-Trump and pro-Trump posts, and many on unrelated subjects.

The source of all this Russian cyber hysteria was the lie that it was Russian intelligence cyber operatives via “cozy” and “fancy” bears, which hacked the Democratic National Committee email database, passing those emails on to Wikileaks in order to discredit Hillary Clinton—a fraud that the former technical director of the NSA, William Binney, has shown with forensic evidence to be a lie—that the emails were not hacked, but downloaded by someone on the inside and delivered to Wikileaks. Shawn Henry, the head of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which the DNC hired to investigate a hack reported to them by the FBI, admitted in Congressional testimony (later declassified) that he had found no evidence that any data had been extracted through a hack.

Because this and other evidence exposing the lie of the Russia-DNC-Hack-Wikileaks narrative was successfully suppressed and covered up by the media, this lie became central to the election fraud of 2020. Hannigan’s GCHQ and its Five Eyes surveillance partners were central to perpetrating these frauds from 2016 to the present.

So where does Hannigan go after leaving the GCHQ, reportedly for having been exposed as having meddled in the 2016 U.S. election to prevent Trump from coming to the White House? Why, to the United States, of course! Or at least he joined a U.S.-based cybersecurity firm in New York City called BlueVoyant, as the Chairman of BlueVoyant International. BlueVoyant is composed of leading institutional players in the Anglo-American cabal, former Wall Street and government agencies, and even the campaign managers for political swamp creatures Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney.

Perhaps it is no surprise that BlueVoyant’s portfolio includes election security issues, partnering with a 501(c)(4) outfit called Defending Digital Campaigns (DDC), to help “defend against cyberattacks and election interference.”

At this point, it should be clear that the “inside job” against Donald Trump by the corrupted networks within the U.S. intelligence agencies was in fact initiated and overseen by the highest levels of British intelligence from the beginning.

If the alleged fraud in the cyber domain of this last election is true, then civilization is in peril, since the concept of the “consent of the governed” is the critical underpinning of our republic, and sovereign nations in general. While we may never see the evidence of these crimes, due to the sophisticated manner in which it can be hidden, a determination of crime begins with a motive. What would be the motive for the likes of Robert Hannigan and Ciaran Martin? Clearly, the House of Lords report, for which Hannigan played a critical role, lays out the basis for that motive: Trump endangers the “special relationship,” and thereby the British Empire.

U.S.-UK Special Cyber Relationship

Ciaran Martin delivered a speech at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit in September 2019, which indicates the British intention to maintain the special relationship through any means necessary. Billington CyberSecurity’s press release describes the summit as—

an important bilateral fireside chat, [where] Christopher Krebs, the first director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), will discuss the U.S./UK special cyber relationship with Ciaran Martin, CEO of the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

In his speech, Martin begins by thanking Krebs for taking the trans-Atlantic partnership on cyber security to a new level:

I want to pay tribute to Chris’s leadership in establishing CISA. And in doing so I want to welcome his emphasis on partnership with allies like us. As I said when I appeared here previously, so much of what the UK achieves in cyber security depends on the willingness of our enduring American allies to share data and collaborate with us on everything from technological innovation to calling out and punishing proven bad behavior by our adversaries.

The establishment of CISA, with its ambitious program of reaching out to state and local government, industry, and wider society, will help us build the partnership further. CISA, together with the establishment of the new Cybersecurity Directorate in the National Security Agency (that Anne Neuberger spoke about yesterday), provides an opportunity to take the trans-Atlantic partnership on cyber security to a new level.

Chris, thank you. The United States, thank you.

Martin goes on to describe the importance of cyber infrastructure security in the defense of “our soft power, our values. Our freedom of speech. Our press freedom. Our electoral security.”

The Internet didn’t invent our values of freedom, entrepreneurship, openness, and community. It’s a brilliant expression of those values. So, cyber security is about defending those shared values we cherish. It’s about defending our free, open, societies. And maybe back in 2016, such an assertion would have seemed slightly over the top. But not anymore. Because look at how those shared, precious digital freedoms are under attack. We know so much more about the threat now than we did in 2016. Or at least we know more that we’re prepared to share. [Emphasis added.]

In light of the accelerating rate of dictatorial censorship now wielded by the “Big Tech” companies, including even the total censorship of the sitting President of the United States, cheered on by the British intelligence operatives with whom they enjoy a symbiotic relationship, what the hell type of “values” is Ciaran Martin talking about?

For Ciaran Martin, Robert Hannigan, and their lickspittles in the U.S. intelligence community, the values are located in the coffers of the City of London and its branch offices on Wall Street, as well as its offshore banking operations. Those values are sacrosanct and must be upheld by its “cock boat in the wake of a British man o’ war” (which John Quincy Adams had warned against) or by “British brains using American brawn” for their geopolitical aims, otherwise known as the “special relationship.” Consider all of this the next time some idiot tells you about foreign interference in the 2020 election by China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela—or God forbid—Cuba.